Home Menu The Orarch, July, 1943
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Continuity News W. J. Sidis Mimeographed newsletter, 4 pages, plus the one-page Proclamation of the Liberty War Objector's Association "(SUPPLEMENT TO 'CONTINUITY NEWS', MAY, 1939.)", found in Helena Sidis's files in 1977. |
No. 13 May, 1939
Issued by the Successors of
Shays
(Boston Branch)
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A journal of current events presented on the basis of the
theory of social continuity.
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THE PAST IS THE KEY TO THE PRESENT
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Temporary mailing address, 905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass., c/o Parker
Greene.
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Subscription, $1 per year, 50¢ for 6 months. Issued monthly. For discussion groups, each subscription after the first is 25¢ a year in addition.
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We attempt to explain rather than to advocate.
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News contributions and constructive criticism welcomed.
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INTRODUCING THE L.W.O.A.
In accordance with announcements carried in last month's "Continuity News," the Successors of Shays celebrated April 18th as the 250th anniversary of the overthrow of the dictator Sir Edmund Andros. One celebration party was held the preceding Saturday in Washington by the S. S. auxiliary there; and, on the evening of the 18th, a celebration was held in Boston, which later adjourned to the scene of the uprising and inspected the bars behind which New Englanders put the dictator. At both parties the reading was made of Hawthorne's Gray Champion1―a legend according to which, on that occasion, an old man appeared long enough to stir up the revolt, then vanished, and, according to which, he has made similar brief appearances whenever a crisis involved New England's liberties.
According to more recent versions of the legend, alluded to at both celebrations, a recent appearance was credited to the Gray Champion in Boston at the anti-draft riots of July 1, 1917. A still later one―not mentioned at the celebration parties―was at the Roxbury Riots of May 1, 1919,2 which formed one of the steps by which America recovered some of her war-time loses of civil liberties. (Civil liberties did not return in this country after the war without a strong fight on the part of the anti-war elements.)
The first of this month was the twentieth anniversary of this last appearance of the Gray Champion. The Successors of Shays made no organised celebration, but the day was, without premeditation, appropriately observed in the spirit of the Gray Champion's last two appearances by the promulgation of a new plan to organise war-objection anew. The new organisation―the Liberty War Objectors' Association―was initiated on the 20th anniversary of an American revolt for the post-war restoration of civil liberties, and under auspices linking up to that revolt.
Though Continuity News refrains from comment pro or con, it is able to present, as a supplement to this issue, the initial proclamation of the LWOA. We hope our readers will find it of interest.
We will be able, for a time at least, to supply readers with information concerning this new organisation; though, in case of emergency, it may be necessary to stop issuing such information.
Could anybody get any satisfaction in the fact that the organisation's initials, LWOA, form a rearrangement of the wartime army expression AWOL (absent without leave)?
The LWOA expect to promulgate shortly a pledge to be taken by all who wish to join, and a constitution which is to cover, among other things, a further explanation of the exact extent to which its members will abjure the support of belligerents. This is to be designed so that any of the category of world-war conscious objectors denominated at this time as "absolutists" (those refusing auxiliary as well as military service) would be able to take the pledge, whether their grounds for objection were political, religious, or otherwise; it will also be designed, for the benefit of those objectors who feel differently towards revolutions than towards wars, that very limited exceptions to the rule would be allowed in such case.
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TERRITORIAL DISPUTES
Just what would happen if American states were belligerent concerning their claims to disputed territory as are the nations in some other parts of the world? The fact is, that within the limits of the United States there are enough territorial disputed claims, including claims that could be revived by states that might get territorially ambitious, to start a bunch of life sized wars.
Best-known of these is the Southern claim to independence as the Confederacy, a claim which is sleeping rather than extinguished.
Maryland claims the District of Columbia, Delaware and a northern boundary running through the city of Philadelphia. In addition, Delaware is also the subject of conflicting claims by New York and Pennsylvania.
Connecticut claims the eastern half of Long Island, and a "Western Reserve" in Ohio, which is larger than Connecticut itself, including Cleveland. (According to Connecticut, Ohio is allowed to occupy this "Reserve" as long as a "Western Reserve University" is maintained there.)
New Hampshire claims a strip of northeastern Massachusetts about 30 miles long and 3 miles wide, but which has more industry and nearly as much population as all of New Hampshire; this strip includes parts of Lowell, Lawrence, and Haverhill. Rhode Island claims a similar but smaller strip of Massachusetts including part of the city of Fall River.
New York claims Block Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and Vermont.
Just what would happen in America if these states decided to enforce these territorial claims by force?
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It is said that one employer averted a sit-down strike by hiring a band to play the Star-Spangled Banner.
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LITTLE ICELAND SPEAKS UP
Part of the President's recent desperate efforts to force war on America consisted in a challenge to a certain European dictator to guarantee non-aggression on a long list of specifically named nations. One result of this speech was that numerous small nations popped up everywhere, insulted at not being mentioned in the list.
Among these was Iceland, which holds some claim (though Americans may well be able to dispute it) to having founded democracy, and which was certainly a pioneer in colonising the New England coast. The administration in Washington replied to Iceland's protest that Iceland was too far from Europe to be in danger.
If Iceland, about 600 miles from the coast of Norway, and totally undefended, is too far from Europe to be in danger of aggression, is that not an official confession that the United States, five times farther from Europe, and with thousand times the population of Iceland, is in no conceivable danger? And is not the administration thereby confessing that the war scare they are trying to raise, and their "rearmament" program, is not for the defense of America's people?
If Iceland, the only nation on earth that actually practices total disarmament and prefers to go fishing instead, is supposed to be in absolutely no danger of attack, is not that a confession by the administration that the disarmament policy is increasing rather than decreasing our risk? And if American armament is not intended against a foreign aggressor, against whom is it? There would only seem to be one answer left. America's government is arming for an attack on its own people, or what is still worse, to hold itself in power against its own people, by force if need be.
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Heckler of orating candidate: I wouldn't vote for you if you were the angel Gabriel."
Candidate: If I were the angel Gabriel, you wouldn't be in my district."
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Another New Deal definition was suggested recently by an "ed pointer" in the Newburyport (Mass.) Liberator. It is:
COOPERATION: Doing what I want without even thinking about it.
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"The lesser of two evils," the favorite excuse in certain circles for outright betrayal of principles, is merely a revelation on the part of the president that he is determined to fight for an evil.
And anything, no matter how bad, no matter how violative of principle it may be, it's always "the lesser of two evils." For it is always possible to dig up something [illegible] as the other alternative. For those who really believe in a principle, when presented with two "evils," they must always choose the third alternative, the right way, which is to fight both.
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"Anyone in Europe possessing the information of the average American commentator would be considered as a spy."―By an unnamed American diplomat.
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"LET US LIVE"
Some five years ago, there was a hold up of the box office of the Lynn Paramount Theater (in Lynn, about ten miles from Boston), involving murder. Two taxi drivers were convicted on positive identifications by witnesses in the hold up, but just before they were to be executed it was proved that the guilty parties were a totally different group, and the taxi drivers received an executive pardon.
A motion picture released lately, entitled "Let Us Live," was built around this case, and with very little alteration of the important features of the case (including the mistaken identifications), though with the usual Hollywood type of romance plot superimposed. The showing of the picture in Boston was met with a certain tenseness by the audience, most of whom recognised the incident. When, towards the end of the picture, the prisoners were released and the prosecuting police officer offered to shake their hands, one of the prisoners refused the handshake, the whole audience burst into cheers, and further applause resulted at the district attorney's remark at the end of the picture to the effect that he was able to convict two innocent men, but wondered if he could convict three guilty men.
The frame-up issue was brought up for the first time in an absolutely clear-cut form, unmixed with the extraneous matters that usually becloud such cases. It has been one of the defects of the American system of law that once sentence has been spoken, no amount of proof of innocence can avail except at the whim of the chief executive, a single man who may prove quite unfeasible, or whose action may be determined by quite other matters than the issue of the case.
Many other well-known criminal cases, including the [Meaney?] case in California, the Sacco-Vanzetti case in Massachusetts, the Hauptmann case in New Jersey, and others, have involved similar issues of evidence, similar doubts from an evidential point of view, and similar points of newly-discovered evidence which could not be presented because the courts were closed by law to the issue while the executive did not happened to feel disposed to consider the evidence. (Let it be said, in due fairness, that in the New Jersey instance the executive was disposed to further investigation, but the matter of pardons was, in that state, in the hands of a committee [illegible] untouchable than the governor.) In the cases mentioned, most of [illegible] have definite and set opinions as to the guilt or innocence of these prisoners; we are not here discussing that, but would merely point out that the straight evidential issues were obscured by other considerations, and the pure issue of consideration of new evidence was not brought up unclouded by other matters, such as the defendants' politics or nationality which may have motivated a frame-up, but had nothing to do with the matter of guilt or innocence.
It may remain to the credit of Maine to be the first state to fix up this glaring defect in American criminal procedure. About three weeks ago, that State passed a law setting up a simple, matter-of-course procedure whereby the courts can be approached to reopen a criminal conviction when newly-discovered evidence might tend to change the aspect of the case. Had California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey had such procedure as Maine is now providing, the prominent cases we have mentioned would have never become the political footballs they did, and the glaring miscarriage of justice in the Lynn case could easily have been averted without calling for executive intervention. Had New York had such procedure, much of the frame-up system uncovered in present investigations there would have lost its force. It merely remains to be seen whether these and other states will profit by the shining example of Maine.
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DID YOU KNOW THAT―
The term "jingo" as applied to ardent advocates of war, comes from an old English verse of the period leading up to the Crimean War, and running:
"We don't want to fight, but, by jingo, if we do,
We've got the ship, we've got the men, we've got the money too!"
An American "conscientious objector" in 1917 composed this reply:
"We don't want to fight, and, by jingo if we don't,
Let's scrap the ships, and rot the guns. And fight? We simply won't."
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Our would-be dictator, Franco DelLano, criticises as "back-seat drivers" those in his political party who disagree with him. Note that the New Deal is in itself the greatest case of back-seat driving―ruining industry by attempting to tell them at every step what to do and what not to do.
And his only followers who have not deserted him, [illegible] any minute. Reports have come from own quarters...that the attitude towards the administration here is scheduled for an abrupt change, if not for a direct reversal.
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A gang of labor pickets recently picketed the D.A.R. headquarters for [illegible] of a colored singer's performance. Equalitarians can have no quarrel with any opposition to the D.A.R.'s attitude; but the theory of the picketing is that no one has the right to an opposing opinion, and that opposition opinions are to be intimidated. As far as American government is concerned, every single one of those pickets is guilty of [illegible] collectively, of a worse violation of American rights against which they were demonstrating.
SUPPLEMENT TO CONTINUITY NEWS," MAY, 1939
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1. Online: Hawthorne's
"Gray Champion".
2. Click "Sidis Gets Year and a Half in
Jail," Boston Herald, May 14, 1919.
